Three men sentenced in child porn cases

Monroe County Court Judge Stephen Higgins sentenced three men in separate cases Tuesday for downloading and disseminating child pornography over the Internet.

Monroe County Court Judge Stephen Higgins sentenced three men in separate cases Tuesday for downloading and disseminating child pornography over the Internet.

Using online technology, Monroe County District Attorney's Office's detectives had identified the men as their computers disseminated files containing child porn pictures and/or videos to other computers via peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.

Detectives then executed search warrants at the men's homes and seized their computers.

All three later pleaded guilty and must now register as sexual offenders under Megan's Law.

None have prior criminal records or have been deemed sexually violent predators, since none have actually sexually abused or molested any children, according to the Monroe County Probation Office, which does pre-sentencing investigation reports on all defendants.

Detectives said Helge Francois, 52, of Tobyhanna, was found with 381 child porn images on his computer, more than what the two other men were found with, when they executed a search warrant at his home in July 2012.

Francois was sentenced to two years of probation for each of 10 child porn counts, totaling 20 years of probation.

Detectives in February executed a search warrant on the Stroudsburg home of Christopher Adams, 38.

Adams has been paroled, having already served the one-day minimum on what would have been a sentence of one day to 23 months in Monroe County Correctional Facility.

Detectives in March targeted the Delaware Water Gap home of Richard Fitzgerald, 52. Fitzgerald has been sentenced to three years of probation.

Andrew Scott

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